While Hertzog was watching the setting of the sun upon an Atlantic horizon, Kritzinger was at Willowmore, almost within sight of the Indian Ocean, having in spite of all the columns pushed his way from Rouxville down into the S.E. districts of the Cape Colony.  Neither Kritzinger nor Hertzog, however, effected much by their raids except to show in the Colony what De Wet had already shown in the Transvaal and the Free State, the impotence of even the best-laid schemes of pursuit, and they returned towards the centre in February.  De Wet and Hertzog had between them in the course of a few months succeeded in ploughing, through the heart of the country occupied by the British Army, a lonely furrow which stretched from the northward slopes of the Magaliesberg in the Transvaal through the Free State to a haven on the South Atlantic Ocean.

Meanwhile De Wet was waiting until the moment should come for him to take part in the wide-reaching plan of campaign which had been devised by the Boer Governments.  They saw the uselessness of attempting to withstand the British forces in the Republics, and they determined to bring the war back into the Cape Colony and Natal.  The general idea was that L. Botha should march on Pietermaritzburg from the Eastern Transvaal, while De Wet followed Hertzog and Kritzinger across the Orange, and then, having effected a junction with them, should advance on Capetown.  The scheme was not so extravagant and quixotic as it might appear to be, as recent events had shown the difficulty of restraining the movements of a Boer leader of dash and enterprise; and there was no reason why De Wet should not be as successful in eluding pursuit in the future as he had been in the past.

Again the Doornberg, although within sight of the railway between Bloemfontein and Kroonstad, was available as a meeting place.  Here on November 16, 1900, he had assembled his burghers for his first attempt on the Cape Colony; and here on January 25, 1901, he brought them together for his second.  Steyn was with him, and all the available Free State commandants with more than 2,000 men mustered on the mountain unmolested.  His intentions were not unknown to the British Intelligence Staff, and when he quitted the rendezvous he had a column under B. Hamilton on his right rear and a column under C. Knox on his left front.

The situation was not novel, and he dealt with it with his customary good luck and success.  He passed across Knox’s front, who fortunately for him had been ordered not to act before Hamilton came up, and reached the Tabaksberg, between Winburg and Brandfort, next day.  On the following morning he shook off an attack made by a portion of Knox’s column, and went for the Bloemfontein Thabanchu line of posts, which he had already twice cut.  Hamilton, distanced in the chase, had been put on the railway and sent to Bloemfontein to strengthen the line, but he arrived too late to prevent De Wet crossing it on January 30 at Israel’s Poort.  The sorely-tried pale had again failed.[54]